Roman

First post so go easy on me.:D

Why do the programs still reside in memory under Running Program List?

If I 'ok' out of Media player 9or any other program)why does it still reside in memory? I am new the world of PDA's. Is there no way to fully exit a program?

Thanks in advance

Roman

Samhael

I was wondering the same thing. I hit the X to close the program and I go back to the desktop but the doggone thing is still running. When I select Exit All Programs, I usually get an error if I have used Active Synch recently since it stops responding.

I'd love to hear a good answer on that -- hopefully even a solution!

hesse

Don't you love Microsoft?? I still cannot believe that they thought it wouldn't be a problem. It's MS's fault. That's how Pocket PC OS is designed. That OK/X button does not close the app. Instead, it just sort of minimizes the program... Doh...

There are several options.

Dell threw in a small nice utility called 'Switcher Bar'. You will find it by going to Settings -> System. Just click on it and you will get an icon with two arrows in the middle of your taskbar on top of your screen. You can use it to close currently running programs.

If you do a reset, you will have to go back and run it again. You should copy the short-cut to the StartUp folder in order to make it automatically load everytime. Search the forum for further instruction.

There are other options also. Search for wisbar, icbar, pocket facelift, etc. They are all great and all provide not only an easy way to switch among apps and close them, but also visual enhancements.

Roman

thanks hesse. That does indeed help. I just enabled the switcher bar and exited from all running programs.

Thanks again.
Roman

Samim

Hesse, good answer you should repost in tips as this is a common ?.

Sam

hesse

Thanks for the suggestion... I will add it to FAQs...

JakeRich

There actually is a "why did they do that?" answer. M$ knows that the competition for the PPC is the Palm, which has very quick opens on the few apps it supports. To get that same response time, M$ built the operating system so that apps don't really close, but get pushed into the background so that when you ask for the contacts again, the app is already there running and pops up for you as fast as it does on the Palm. If you shut it down, you'll face the startup time every time you want contacts, or calendar, or whatever. I do keep some things running in the background all the time just to have that responsiveness (Pocket Informant, for example) but I do shut down others (Media Player, etc.).

I use ICBAR to shut down apps. It's good and free. WISBAR is another free variant of the same product. Both have a nice feel to them.

duanedavis

I noticed that with Pocket Outlook, if you leave the email program connected to check for emails, when you go to shut it down it says that it is not responding, but if you turn off the connection BEFORE going to end the task, it shuts off with no problems. I like Pocket PC 2002, but they need to allow you to choose which programs you want to run in the background and which ones you want SHUT DOWN when you hit that "X"

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hesse

Whatever reasoning that MS had, I still think it was a bad decision. Pocket PC OS aned Palm OS are different. Palm cannot do multi-tasking... so they HAVE TO close the app in order to open another... Pocket PC OS is designed to handle multi-tasking... No need to compete with Palm's design....

And yes, as JakeRich pointed out, it is better to leave some apps up for the quick access.. However, the more app you have running at one point, the more resources they will eat up leaving not enough juice for other apps... Then things will get very slow... becasue how OS has to keep up with multiple tasks... Even if you don't do anything with the app that you have in the background, OS has to check back every CPU cycle to see if it needs to do anything with it...

JakeRich

Hey, I never said it was a GOOD design! :p

And that was good point, Hesse, about the cycles. The more you have running, the more memory/cycles are consumed and the slower the response gets overall. I keep just PocketInformant running because I use that for my daily schedule, which is the prime use of the Ax for me.

hesse

And think about all those juices flowing out of your precious battery!!!! Hehe.. :D

Samim

The speed of these little guys (ppc) have improved to the point where it should be an option. It is kind of strange MS did not include a wisbar type option in the OS.

Sam